Babyfood Recipes

A few months back I posted how I was going to attempt to make all of my daughter's food. She is 10 months old now and I have been successful at it.  Yay!  It's been a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I thought I would share a few of my recipes and tips with you all.

Chicken and Veggies

I usually buy a rotisserie chicken when I go shopping to use in meals.  To use it with baby food, I take about a cup of meat and chop it up.  I add it to a baked squash or a few baked sweet potatoes in a mixing bowl. Add a little bit of chicken broth and puree with a hand blender.  She loves it.

Beef Stew

1 pound stewing beef - cut into 1 inch slices
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 potatoes, peeled and sliced into chunks
1 cup frozen peas
enough water to cover the food
1 tbsp beef boullion

Boil everything together until the meat and veggies are soft.  Add water as necessary.  Puree with a hand blender.

Apricots and ?

To make a good apricot puree, re-hydrate dried apricots with a enough water to cover them up.  Boil for about 10 minutes.  Puree right in the pot.  I like to make apricot plus another fruit mix.  To make apricots and bananas, I take 2 bananas, slice them and lay them out on a piece of aluminum foil.  Scoop a good portion of the apricot puree on top.  Add a little bit of vanilla (1 tsp).  Wrap the fruit up into a package and bake it at 325 for 20 minutes.  Once the fruit is all soft, empty the packet out into a mixing bowl and puree everything together with a hand blender.  I do the same with apricot and apple, just substitute a couple of peeled, cored and sliced apples for the banana.  And yes, I've done this with just the apple and banana and it works great too.  Very tasty!

How to store your baby food:

Spoon into ice cube trays.  I label the trays with a dry-erase marker so I remember what's in there.  The next day pop the cubes into freezer bags, make sure to label them and date the food, so you know what you have and when you made it.  Baby food in the freezer can be kept and used for 3-6 months.  Thawed food can be kept refrigerated for a couple of days.  The great thing with the cubes is that there is very little waste.  You get a good sense of how much your little one will eat and you just need to defrost/heat that much.  I usually microwave 2-3 cubes for about 40 seconds.  But be sure to stir and check the temperature before you serve it.  You don't want your baby to get a burnt tongue from a hot spot.  Have fun and be creative!

Adventures in Baby food

No picture of the baby food because let's face it, my daughter is much cuter than mush. Making your own baby food is so easy that I'm kicking myself that I didn't do it more with my first two children. In fact you probably have instant babyfood around your house already (and much cheaper than commercially made food).

Applesauce - a staple in two forms at our place. I always have a large jar of the unsweetened organic kind on hand for baking as well as the individual apple sauce mixes around for the boys (and now girl too). By mixes I mean the apple/peach, apple/grape, apple/berry combos.

Canned Pumpkin - I usually have this in my cupboard for making pumpkin pancakes, or pumpkin bread. You don't need to do anything to it to serve it to baby, just heat it a little and it's ready.

Bananas - this is one I shake my head at. Why oh why do people pay 60 cents or more for a tiny container of baby food banana? This is the easiest and handiest baby food to make. You take a piece of banana and mash it with a fork. That's it.

Avocado - as with the banana, mash it with a fork

Brown Beans/Chickpeas/Kidney Beans etc... - we usually have the canned versions of these in our cupboards. I drain and rinse first and then use a hand blender or food processor to puree.

Peas and other frozen veggies - steam cook, drain and then puree with a hand blender. Add water a little bit at a time to get a nice, fine puree.

Carrots, green beans and other fresh veggies - same as with the frozen veggies. Just make sure you fresh water, not the carrot water when you are puree-ing. That water will have some things in it that isn't good for baby.

Squash and sweet potato - I like to bake these as opposed to boiling them. Bake until soft then puree with a hand blender or food processor. Add a little water to it if you think it is too thick.

Adding Meat - Another wonderful use for those rotisserie chickens. I add some chopped cooked chicken to the sweet potatoes, or squash and then blend it all with a little chicken broth. This would be my daughter's current favorite food.

Mesh feeders - I have a couple of these for my little darling to try harder to puree foods like watermelon fresh apples and cantelope. She loves gnawing away at them and it's great for her teething gums.

That's where we are so far in our food adventures. She does eat the baby food cereals but that's about it as far as commercially sold food goes. It's wonderful to use what we already have around. We're saving money and I think she's getting a better tasting food.